


there's magic in the way you move (stop the world it's only you)

by Madeofsequins



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, post-trk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madeofsequins/pseuds/Madeofsequins
Summary: "The winter solstice. To Adam, magic feels closer than it has since that day last year when he lost his own."Adam returns to Virginia for winter break.





	there's magic in the way you move (stop the world it's only you)

**Author's Note:**

> It appears these books and these boys have truly gotten in my head, inspiring multiple works after a very long hiatus from writing and fandom. So there's that! This is pretty typical of my writing, a shortish "FWPWP" (feelings without plot without porn) -- so there's also... that.

_Unknowable_. The word flits into the back of Adam’s brain unwittingly, like a song remembered from years before. He remembers clearly, then, the day he’d first realized that he knew so little about Ronan Lynch, that there was so much he wanted to find out.

 

He steps back from a crushing embrace with the young man in question, pushing him just slightly up against the BMW Ronan had driven to pick up Adam at Reagan National. Unburying his face from Ronan’s neck, Adam takes a moment to study the face before him.

 

Adam gets the distinct impression that the Ronan picking him up from the airport is not the same Ronan he’d left in Singer’s Falls in September. He wonders sharply how he’d ever mistaken this young man for an ordinary schoolboy, a classmate -- and not just because he’s desperately in love with him, but also because the otherworldliness of him is so apparent. Compared to Adam’s college classmates, Ronan is so clearly magical, so clearly something _more_ , that Adam scoffs at his past self for the all the time he spent thinking otherwise.

 

In his arms, Ronan feels both very close and very far away. Farmwork and silence and solitude have left him looking lean and hungry and remote in a way that he either hadn’t been before, or that Adam had forgotten. It has been a long four months.

 

Adam knows, in a general sense, how Ronan is doing. They speak a few times a week, less frequently when work and school demand Adam’s time and attention, or the weight of isolation and silence grows particularly heavy on Ronan. It’s difficult for both of them; they rely so much on touch and presence and shared experience that phone calls seem a cheap and frustrating facsimile of the real thing.

 

Even still, the change Adam sees in Ronan is surprising. Maybe it shouldn’t be; he’d spent the majority of the fall within the confines of the Barns. It seems unlikely he’d seen much of anyone outside of Opal and his church-going brothers. For a moment, Ronan feels almost like a stranger. Then he smiles his familiar knife-edged grin, and Adam feels so comforted he kisses him right there outside the terminal.

 

It’s late, nearly midnight. Adam had taken his last exam this afternoon before heading straight to the airport. It had been snowing in New Haven, but here in Virginia, it’s just cold and softly drizzling. They get into the car. Chainsaw skitters around the backseat, cawing when she senses Adam. Ronan’s smile is sharp and wistful, and his teeth flash white in the dark. “Have you ever seen the ocean, Parrish?”

 

\--

 

Adam has not, really, not in any way that counts.

 

Virginia Beach is four hours away. “You can sleep, if you want,” Ronan mumbles around his paper cup of coffee. He looks tired and strange in the darkness of the driver’s seat, the highway lights intermittently highlighting just a glimpse of his eyelashes grazing his cheekbone, a patch of dark denim on his thigh.

 

“When was the last time _you_ slept?” Adam returns, equal parts curiosity and worry. Ronan’s non-committal hum into his coffee is answer enough. Adam smiles-sighs, a little exasperated, a little fond, and traces a finger up and down Ronan’s forearms. Intricate, haunting tattoos, a continuation of the pattern on his back, have appeared there sometime in the past four months. The ink covering scar tissue and ropey tendons looks neither new nor old. A long time ago, Adam used to resent Ronan for creating pain for himself when all Adam wanted was to escape his own. Adam has learned a thing or two more about pain since. “Did you dream these?”

 

“Mmhmm.” Ronan quirks an eyebrow. “You like?”

 

“I do.” Adam’s hands keep wandering, hungrily reacquainting himself with all the reachable parts of Ronan’s body. His veins feel full to bursting with fire. Ronan pulls over at the next park-and-ride, which is blissfully dark and empty at this hour.

 

They still arrive at the beach in time to watch the sunrise.

 

\--

 

December 21, 7:00 am. Due to the early hour and the winter season, the beach is unsurprisingly empty except for Adam and Ronan. They sit close together on a rickety pier; the light wood, weathered by the salty coastal wind, looks like picked-over bone. They huddle into their winter jackets and each other. Chainsaw, delighted to be free, soars overhead.

 

Across the ocean before them, the sun rises slowly. The pink and orange rays wash over them. Ronan’s eyes, bright bright bright in the growing daylight, move from the expanse of the ocean to meet Adam’s.

 

“Shortest day of the year today.”

 

Adam elbows him in the side. The effect is significantly dampened by the layers of winter clothing between them. “You get that from your farmer's almanac or your dreamer spidey-senses?”

 

“Google. Do they teach you nothing in that fancy school, college boy?”

 

“Not a scholarly source,” Adam replies primly, making a mental note to ask later if the internet at the Barns is a product of a dream or Comcast.

 

When the sun is high above the horizon and Adam starts to nod off against Ronan’s shoulder, they retreat to the backseat of the car and make out for what feels like hours. It’s long and lazy without the immediate intention of going elsewhere. Adam's hunger for Ronan is bottomless; he feels it reciprocated. He sometimes wants to swallow Ronan whole.

 

Eventually, they doze lying across the seats and each other. Ronan wakes up holding a perfectly-shaped conch shell in his hand. It plays a jaunty sea shanty when he flips it upside down. They find a diner and eat breakfast at noon.

 

\--

 

The day _is_ a short one. Breakfast bleeds into afternoon bleeds into twilight in no time at all. The beach town remains largely deserted. Ronan procures a coarse blanket from somewhere within the BMW, and they return to the beach. The sun hangs orange and heavy in the west, the beach itself already sporting a misty violet glow.

 

The winter solstice. To Adam, magic feels closer than it has since that day last year when he lost his own. Whether that’s due to the significance of the night itself or the solid mass of dreamer currently resting its head in his lap is hard to say. Smoothing one of Ronan's short curls back underneath his knit hat, he supposes it doesn't much matter. Ronan sighs quietly into Adam's thigh.

 

Just twenty-four short hours in the past, college now seems light-years away. The simple and timeworn routine of freshman year at Yale seems trivial when he remembers the trials and adventures of last year, when he again considers Ronan’s body curled around him, his very unique brand of mysticism practically radiating from his core.

 

And yet, despite the abrupt reentry into the mundane, despite the distance from Ronan being so difficult it sometimes physically pains him, he doesn't regret the choice.

 

He hasn't yet mustered the resolve to ask, _really_ ask, Ronan about his own decision to stay. Adam can see the toll four months of isolation have taken on him. He doesn't know how long it takes to heal wounds like Ronan’s. _I'd always come back for you,_ he wants to say, _but staying forever might just kill you._

 

What he says out loud: “want to build a fire?”

 

\--

 

They built a small teepee of cold, dry driftwood. To Adam’s complete lack of surprise, Ronan has a lighter stashed in his glovebox. With no small amount of effort, they finally manage to convince the pile to catch flame and keep burning. The fire does little for warmth or light now that night has fully fallen, but Adam enjoys watching the weak firelight play over Ronan’s exposed knuckles, the musical shell he flips back and forth, the fine, sharp bones of his face.

 

If nothing else, the four months of quiet solitude and the thankfully uneventful ten months prior have groomed a more settled version of Ronan. He doesn’t look happy, exactly, but the anger and pain that used to come off of him in constant waves have lessened. Adam wouldn’t dream of taking full credit, but he figures his own presence had a heavy hand in that as well. He takes a moment to admire the planes of Ronan’s face, for the moment uncreased by unhappiness or scorn. He follows his eyes with his fingertips, follows his fingertips with his lips, a ghost of a kiss across Ronan’s cheek.

 

“Keys? I’ll be right back.”

 

Ronan hands them over, huddling a little further into his jacket. The night is still, even this close to the ocean, but it’s cold and getting colder as the hour gets later.

 

In the car, Adam rummages around for the small, velvet pouch. He carries Persephone’s tarot cards with him still, although he hasn’t really used them in over a year now. If ever there were a time to try again, though, tonight seems appropriate: the solstice, the driftwood fire, his dreamer lover playing with his latest dream thing. The night is dark, the moon hangs heavy and bright above the ocean, and magic feels so close, just beyond the reach of his fingertips. If ever there were a time to try to grasp it again, it’s now.

 

Adam returns to the blanket spread over the sand, shuffling the deck a bit clumsily in his half-frozen hands. Ronan watches him, “hmm”ing into the collar of his coat. Adam feels eyes on his hands, flicks his wrists a little more showily because he knows Ronan likes it. He shoots a grin in Ronan’s direction and feels the slight swell of his heart when it’s returned.

 

“Feeling witchy, Parrish?”

 

Adam doesn’t reply, just stares pointedly at the dream shell in Ronan’s hand until the other boy smirks.

 

Once he feels ready, he scoots closer to Ronan on the blanket, pressing up against his side, and hooks their ankles together. He’s not really sure how this would work if he were doing a proper reading, but he wants whatever he’s doing now to speak to them both.

 

He fans out the cards and picks the three that feel the heaviest, the most significant. He flips them over quickly, one by one: the four of wands, the ace of swords, the ten of pentacles.

 

Ronan shifts at his side, pulling out his phone to use the flashlight. “What do they mean?” To be the rare recipient of Ronan’s true, raw curiosity, stripped of sarcasm and bravado, feels like a gift every time.

 

“Well. You know, they can mean a lot of things, or nothing. You can always see things how you want to.”

 

“What do they mean to _you_?”

 

Adam smiles. “Sure. Four of wands: celebrating, a special time, or a ceremony or rite. Happy solstice, right?”

 

Ronan’s reply is a quick and not-quite-gentle nip at his neck.

 

“Mm. Ace of swords, fortitude, truth. That’s got you written all over it. And, ten of pentacles,” Adam pauses, considers. He silently discards affluence, maybe because it doesn’t feel right, maybe because he doesn’t want to argue. “Seeking permeance. Long-term security. That feels… yeah, that’s it.” He tightens the twist of his leg around Ronan’s. Ronan makes a face but leans into the contact anyway.

 

There are not many things about Ronan Lynch, ignorer of phone calls, man of few words, extreme homebody, and all-around prickly asshole, that make dating him particularly convenient, but his refusal to lie is definitely one of them. Adam may receive a good number of non-answers, but he never gets a false one. So he lets the cards lay where they are and looks Ronan in the eye to ask, “How's it been at the Barns, really? Are you... lonely?”

 

“I’m not _alone_.”

 

They both know that the questions he’s not answering are answer enough, but Adam knows better than to comment on it. “Okay,” he says instead, purposefully neutral. He lets his hand say what he won’t voice, slipping under Ronan’s jacket to trace the knobs of his spine, the blunt edges of his ribs. They have so much time, now.

 

Ronan leans further into him, hard lines of his face softening under Adam’s touch. His eyes stare over the fire, out at the expanse of ocean before them. Chainsaw screeches from somewhere in the darkness. “Maybe we’ll give it an ocean, next time. Cabeswater, if we -- when we bring it back.”

 

The waves seem to crash more loudly against the shore after his speaks. Adam isn’t sure if he’s imagining the crackle of magic in the cold, salty air. If he tilts his head just so, he almost thinks he can hear it. “Maybe. Maybe when it’s time, we’ll know.”

 

“Yeah. Maybe. Not here, though.”

 

“Hmm, yeah. Some asshole brought me all the way to Virginia Beach for no reason. Nothing magical to see here,” but that’s an untruth and he wants Ronan to know he didn’t mean it, so he scrunches up his face and makes another attempt at jabbing Ronan with his elbow. The jacket situation hasn’t changed, so it’s still not effective, but it’s the intention that counts. Of course there’s magic to be had here, magic to be had anywhere where Ronan is, anywhere that they’re together.

 

Ronan’s reply is a small smile, unselfconsciously happy. (Oh, there -- there’s the magic.) He stands and holds out his hand to help Adam up. “Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Title from "Heavy" by Oh Wonder.
> 
> Also, I'm on [tumblr](http://korvidkids.tumblr.com).


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